Lake Bluff trustees signal preference to replace grocery tax with 0.25-point home-rule sales tax

At a Sept. 8 Committee of the Whole meeting, members of the Village of Lake Bluff Board of Trustees indicated a working consensus to replace the village's 1.0% municipal grocery retailers tax with a 0.25-percentage-point increase in the village's home-rule sales tax — taking that rate from 1.00% to 1.25% — and asked staff to prepare ordinance language and filing materials for board consideration.

The move is intended to preserve roughly $250,000 a year in local revenue the village expects to lose when the state-level grocery retailers tax was repealed and municipalities were permitted to adopt their own versions. Village staff noted the tax is a predictable revenue source because grocery purchases occur regularly, while trustees raised concerns that a grocery-specific tax is regressive and would fall disproportionately on lower-income households. Trustee Susan Reiter, chair of the finance committee, said, "I would be behind a 1.25 sales tax in lieu of a 1% grocery tax."

The board did not take a formal vote on an…